Pay The Price
by NoteEmmy
Summary: Mai is having trouble with her Duel Disk and she would very much like for a certain CEO to fix it for her. Too bad that will never happen.


Kujaku Mai.

The woman was a nuisance, a loud annoying blithe on the dueling community, and a troublemaker. Well, that was far as Kaiba was concerned. Two weeks ago if you had asked him who she was he would have barely had any response at all. Since then, however, it seemed like the woman had somehow worked up a very powerful want to die. If she wasn't aware of how powerful Kaiba was, he was very interested in showing her after all the antics she had been pulling. Too many employees had been fired over her these past few days (though showing their true colors now was fine, getting rid of them at least appeased his mood for a few seconds).

She had been sniffing around his building. He'd seen her on all of the feeds. The first day she'd even waltzed right into Kaiba Corporation headquarters and _demanded_ an audience with Kaiba. His secretaries of course had at least been interested in keeping their jobs. They had not been swayed. They told her to get lost, and rightfully so. Kaiba wasn't interested in whatever she was selling or whatever it was she wanted. Not in the slightest.

Ever since she'd been escorted out roughly after causing a scene in the lobby she'd been hanging around the outside. One by one when the employees filed out when their shifts ended she cozied up to every one of them. After some revealed they didn't have the information she wanted, she dropped them quickly. There were a few, however, who had what she needed and were very willing to cooperate. It made Kaiba sick.

He thought he'd fixed the problem after publicly humiliating those few employees and firing them in front of the rest of the staff. He made examples of them. He would not tolerate this nonsense. It was after that day that the blonde obnoxious woman seemed to stop showing up. One day. And then the next. It was quiet.

Too quiet. And Kaiba knew better.

It was late in the afternoon now. He was arriving back to headquarters after a particularly fruitful business meeting with another head company. Soon they would become another cog in the Kaiba Corporation machine. He was feeling pretty smug and successful. All it took to ruin that mood was one woman- and the crowd she'd attracted at the front of Kaiba Corporation.

"...Sir?" Isono asked, lowering the privacy glass in the limousine to see what his boss wanted him to do.

"_Tch._" Kaiba sounded before he opened his door and slammed it. The crowd turned to him once they realized he was there. "You all have three seconds to vacate this area or I will have you forcefully removed. You are trespassing." His tone was cool as ice.

"There you are." Mai said, the crowd parting so she could step forward. She stayed a smart distance away from him once she came to a stop, hand on her hip. "I've been waiting all day for you, Kaiba-chan."

The corner of Seto's eye twitched. "And you will be thrown in jail. Failure to comprehend that I don't want you on my property. That carries a heavy sentence." As heavy as Kaiba wanted to make it. He knew the exact people to slide money towards to make sure she stayed imprisoned forever. This woman obviously had no idea whom she was dealing with, but he would show her.

"Prison's not my thing and this could all be cleared up very easily you know. I need you to do something for me."

"_Hah._ As if I have any interest in consorting with third-rate losers. Get off my property. Last warning." He'd still have the cops come to her house, of course. With the crowd, however, he couldn't throw his weight around in a strictly non-legal sense. Too many cameras, too much of a headache. Too many people to get rid of. The woman was annoying but she was smart.

Mai's arm shot out activating her Duel Disk, but Kaiba saw it then. The joints of the machine were out of shape, the way it connected together was slightly off. The fact that one of his machines had been disrespected like that set his temper even harder. "You _will_ fix this. All of these have a warranty to work and _mine_ doesn't." She continued to protest.

Seto scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest. "You should have taken it to a repair shop. I don't have time for personal hand outs."

"I figured you'd want to see this for yourself." She began smirking.

"I have no interest in seeing you, ever, Kujaku." And after this he never would have to again.

Mai drew a card between slender fingers. "I have a feeling this is something only you can fix." She smarted before laying the card down on the duel plate. The colors were duller than they should have been as they lit up along the machine. Another thing that made Kaiba's fingers itch to make the right call.

"This is a waste of my time and I will not stand for it any longer!" He shouted, scaring off half the crowd then. They might have been here to see a promised show, but pissing off Kaiba was really the last thing any of them wanted to do.

The rest who stayed were greeted to quite a treat.

The generators took longer than they should have to whir up but when that single, solitary Harpie Lady finally appeared, Kaiba saw what the problem was. Oh yes. He saw quite well.

"Now I don't particularly think there's anything wrong with this. I could duel like this!" She laughed at him still smirking. "But kids of all ages play this game, Kaiba-chan. So you see my problem?"

The Harpie Lady shrieked to agree with her master, her arms unfolding, releasing her wings. Her breasts swayed with such a heavy movement. Her unclothed breasts. She then stuck her hips out to further prove a point. No clothing. None at all.

Kaiba unfortunately felt a slight tinge of pink on his face. It wasn't that he'd programmed them to be naked. Not ever. That was as low as it got. But a glitch in the graphics was as good as anything else. The details on a monster like that were fine. And without clothes, with the colors glitching to match her skin tone ... some things appeared to be more life like than he had ever intended.

"You embarrass yourself. Even without this your deck is poor. It's why you never win." He pushed back. "I'm still not responsible for this." He continued, advancing on her. "I can see that the disk is bent out of shape. You've been throwing it around, treating it carelessly. That alone voids your 'warranty'." His tone had slid back into furiously cold.

Mai had no interest in moving, as if standing her ground would prove anything. "So it's got into a few scrapes, just because of that I don't have the right to it being fixed? I'm not even asking for a new one!"

Kaiba closed the gap, reaching out to yank the Harpie Lady card from the plate between two slender fingers. The monster disappeared with a cry. "I don't want to see you around here again." He glared at her.

Her hands clenched by her sides. "Once my disk is fixed I'll challenge you in front of a crowd twice this size!" She promised.

Kaiba leaned in close and smirked in her face. "Fetch." He turned sharply to toss the card all the way down the street before it was embedded in a lamp post several yards away.

The woman gaped in horror as her precious card was tossed away so carelessly (and yet with such skill). A huff was given and a rather hard shove as she pushed away to run after her card. God forbid one of the crowd members stole it and tried to pull what she just did on Kaiba. Except with much better leverage. Kaiba just watched her run off with a very satisfied smirk. After two seconds more he turned and walked proudly into the front doors of Kaiba Corporation.

"Isono, no disruptions for the next hour. I need to make a few phone calls..."


End file.
